


To Grow Up

by Kingknome



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hook (1991)
Genre: Azula - Freeform, Gen, Iroh - Freeform, Please take this and run, Plotbunnies, Zuko is Rufio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 16:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingknome/pseuds/Kingknome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They taught him how to imagine a bowl of fireflakes; Rufio eats them one-by-one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Grow Up

**Author's Note:**

> Musical Inspiration: http://sophiemadeleine.bandcamp.com/track/rufio

"When will you ever grow up Zuzu?" It's Azula wrapping herself around his bedpost, serpentine and poisonous. "You're such a dumb baby."

Zuko doesn't bother to turn toward her, hands carefully adjusting his topknot. "Get out." He growls around the golden pin between his teeth.

Azula thumps down onto his bed and gives him her saddest lion-puppy eyes through the mirror. "But this could be our last goodbye brother!" She rolls so that she's spread eagle and her head dangles off the edge, "Your hair is crooked."

"Get. Out." Zuko growls. His hair is crooked, but he jams the pin through anyway.

"Zu-zuuuuu!! This is our last goodbye!! Dad's going to kill you for real this time." She rolls into a sitting position, face solemn. "Mom's not around to save you anymore."

"Father doesn't have anything to do with this, it's between me and General Haung. This is important, top secret stuff that doesn't have anything to do with you or Mom. So GET OUT!!" Zuko punctuates the last bit with a fireball at Azula's head, but she flips nimbly away.

"Poor Zuzu, you don't know a thing. Insulting the Firelord's trusted adviser in his own war room, just what were you thinking? Maybe you'll be lucky and Dad'll just banish you."

"Shut up!" Screams Zuko, his voice cracking. "You don't know anything about anything!" He throws another fireball, smaller and more precise, but it only catches air as Azula dodges again. His bed starts on fire while Azula dances away. He kicks flame at her, spinning to use both feet, driving her out his door into the hallway.

"Get OUT!" He roars pushing a wall of flame behind her for good measure. When the sparks settle Azula is nowhere to be seen.

Zuko takes a few deep breaths, extinguishes his bed, and then turn back to his mirror. His topknot is more than crooked now, and he pulls the mess apart to start over. As he brushes his hair out, he catches sight of Azula, leaning almost out of sight around the hallway corner.

Her expression takes a moment to place; it could almost be concern.

Zuko shivers, and piles his hair into place. He should to talk to uncle, just in case.

\--  
"Zuko, I am glad to see you my nephew." Uncle Iroh draws him into a hug, his voice warm but concerned. "I thought you wished to remain alone in your quarters before your Agni-Kai."

"I did." Zuko pauses, and then draws a deep breath, "but Azula..." He trails off unsure how to continue. He feels like a child, running to mother for protection, unable to stand up against a sister two years his junior.  
"Never mind, it's stupid." He says pushing away from Uncle.

But Iroh's hand locks on his wrist. "What did your sister say?" His voice has is the harsh note of command in it, and then more gently, "Tell me?"

Zuko hesitates, "She said..." A deep breath, "She said I was stupid..." And he feels stupid saying this, "...that Father will..." And his mind wants to skip over it, "...that this time...." And he cannot finish this. Cannot tell his uncle what haunts his dreams, because saying it out loud might make it real.

"Your father does not want what is best for you." Uncle's face is grave and he does not look Zuko in the eye. "He wishes Azula to be heir and you have given him an excuse to pass over you."

Zuko wants to scream: "No! My Father loves me!" But he cannot, the words stuck in his chest. Uncle draws him down to the table, already set with tea, and Zuko realizes he is trembling. That he cannot stop trembling.

"My nephew," says Uncle, his voice heavy with grief, "Zuko, you are grown in the eyes of the Fire Nation. Old enough to attend a war council. Old enough for Agni-Kai." He pauses, and wipes away Zuko's tears. "Old enough for death... Or banishment."

There is a long pause where neither says anything. Only Zuko's harsh breathing breaks the silence.

Finally uncle speaks. "Go back to your quarters." He says; "I will speak with your father."

As Zuko leaves Uncle calls from behind him; "Zuko, you will be an adult in the Eyes of the Nation tomorrow, remember that."

Zuko wanders the halls In a daze, he feels hot and cold and twice has to duck into a corner to dry heave. He makes it back to his bedroom where the linens are still burnt, and heaves again. He cannot do this. He cannot challenge his own father. His father loves him.

Zuko remembers running on the beaches of Ember Island, his father laughing and tossing him in the air. He remembers his father's pride when he first bent a flame. His father loves him.

He wonders why he cannot call Father "dad". He tries to remember his father's pride after his first day at the academy, but his mother's face is the only one he can conjure. He cannot remember the last time father smiled at him.

After Lu-ten had died, his grandfather had hated him too, but before that... When he was small, his grandfather would set him on his knee and feed him fireflakes one-by-one.

When had he gotten too old for his Father and Grandfather? When did little mistakes become life or death?

He wishes he could still be a boy who played with knives and coddled turtleducks.

He wishes he had never grown up.  
\--  
Zuko is still awake sometime between midnight and dawn, wrapped on a singed blanket on the balcony. The moon is bright and only a few stars are visible. The second on the right is brightest.

Zuko stares at it unblinkingly, trying not to think of tomorrow, and watches it grow brighter.

And brighter.

And brighter.

He stands up, blanket falling off of him, and shields his eyes with his hand as the star falls. It is not a star, Zuko realizes, but a tiny spirit.

"Hello." Says the spirit.  
"Hello" says Zuko, and then formally " I am Zuko, son of Firelord Ozi and Firelady Ursa; heir to Fire Nation."

"Are you really?" Asks the spirit.

"Of course!" Says the prince, "Wha- Who are you?"

"I'm a fairy," says the spirit, "You may call me Tink. And you should know better than to give your name away so easily."  
\--  
The next morning the Firelord burns with rage, the cowardly boy has disappeared, and without a body or a reason, the court's suspicious eyes turn his way.  
\--  
"RUFIO RUFIO RU-FI-OOOOooooo!!!"

He loves when they chant his name. Loves the way their eyes turn to him, they're adoration and respect in their smiles. Loves the way they love him totally and unconditionally.

After all, he is their leader.

He rides the glider down it's track, swings from the trapezes, and drops into his frenzied court.

Today there is a pirate, and they kill pirates (and lawyers, whatever they are, can die too).  
\--

Rufio watches the Lawyer struggle through the adventures of Neverland and hates him. Peter Pan was gone or dead long before he arrived in Neverland, and it was Pan's fault the Lost Boys had been so pathetic when he arrived.

Rufus's own arrival to Neverland is the brightest and fuzziest of his memories. He remembers the joy of sledding for true first time, but not why he had never done it before. He knows he's never heard of Indians until he met the Chief, but he knew to hate pirates long before he saw them.

The first time Rufio played with the Lost Boys there were less than a dozen of them, dirty, unorganized, and grieving Peter Pan. He taught them how to play "Build a New Tree Fort With a Real Roof". They taught him how to imagine a bowl of fireflakes; Rufio eats them one-by-one.

Rufio remembers learning basketball, skateboarding, marbles, jacks, tag, hide-and-seek, ball-and-cup, rugby, mother-may-I, and a thousand other games, but doesn't know when he learned to fight. He taught most of the Lost Boys how to hold a sword or shield; how to create a strategy and follow through, how to retreat and recover. The Boys teach him how to make a fire, but Rufio cannot understand why fire will not simply appear the way food will. Tink might know but she won't share.

Rufio watches the Lost Boys try to teach the Lawyer how to exercise the way he taught them. When he tries to remember who taught him, he gets vertigo. They put the Lawyer in a slingshot and it reminds him that he cannot fly. To fly is to be free from Neverland, and Rufio never, never wants to leave.

When the Lawyer learns to fight, and fly and crow, Rufio admits this man is the Peter Pan. He wonders what that means for him and his boys. He never finds out.

When Rufio looks into the eyes of Peter Pan, he finally sees what he can never have. "If I had a Dad," he croaks, "I'd want him to be just like you". But his father will never be like Peter Pan.

His father is the Firelord.

His father is a pirate.

And Rufio kills pirates.

**Author's Note:**

> I cobbled this together on my phone at work, and finished it at the bar. I've been waiting forever for someone to post a Zuko-is-Rufio, but nobody has. 
> 
> Edited for clarity 5/16/16
> 
> If anyone can cobble a plot around this, please do so. There is a sad lack of Rufio fanfiction in the world.


End file.
